Flashes of Panic

Some geeks do television sci-fi. I didn’t do television very much; instead I developed a fondness for James Bond movies. Not that I was impressed with, say, “Die Another Day,” but there’s always something to be impressed with.

In particular, in “Goldeneye” there was this Russian hacker. To me, he seemed like a relatively sympathetic character, if only because he was generally hacking in a misguided effort to impress the girl. (Who, of course, ended up with Bond. Sorry, Moneypenny.)

Maybe the thing I identified with was the physical expression of what he was doing. When he was working on a program, he wasn’t just furiously tapping at the keyboard; what was going on in his head had him positively bursting with fidgets until he could express it in working code. He perpetually clicked a ballpoint pen open and closed (which, in a world which still included Q, is never a good idea.) He bounced his feet. And, when he made it work, he would leap to his feet and announce triumphantly, “I am in-veen-cible!”

Every now and then I code something and get just that feeling. But I don’t think anyone would get the reference if I jumped up and shouted, “I am in-veen-cible!”

Anyway, this guy winds up, of course, working for the Bad Guy, due to his unfortunately questionable ethics, and therefore dies a suitably dramatic and supposedly well-deserved death. I wonder if I was the only geek in the audience thinking, “Dude! That was a great hack! Why’d he have to die?”

Now playing: You Wreck Me from Wildflowers by Tom Petty